Events

Last weekend I attended Series Mania at ACMI, where I saw the first two episodes of Below the Surface, a Danish thriller from the people behind Borgen and The Killing. The entire series is about to premiere on SBS OnDemand as part of its Crime Time collection. A couple of notes: this is a brief review – I’ve only seen the first two episodes, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but I also don’t know if the show sticks the landing. The other is that I didn’t take note of the actors’ names, so I’ll be going by character names when I remember them. I didn’t take any notes until the Q&A with Kasper Barfoed after the show. On with the review!

Sophie Cadieux, who bears some resemblance to Elisabeth Moss in other stills

Thanks to the Emerging Writers Festival newsletter, I learned that ACMI is hosting Series Mania Melbourne | A Free Festival of New TV this weekend. It started today (Thursday), and ACMI is hosting a series of free screenings for upcoming shows, as well as a keynote talk with Vince Gilligan, which had sold out by the time I’d learned that the festival was even on.

A note about the screenings: You can make some educated guesses (and I have a bunch of press releases and a giant spreadsheet), but it’s not clear. Also before you get too excited, Get Krack!nby Kates McLennan and McCarthy of The Katering Show is also sold out. It will be on ABC later this year.

I’d never heard of Series Mania, but it’s a French festival that aims to be television’s answer to Cannes. It began in Paris, and is moving to Lille next year. Series Mania has been brought to Melbourne by Forum des Images, and is sponsored by ACMI and film Victoria, as reported by Variety. It’s the first time Series Mania has been to another country, and I hope it continues to both expand and return to Melbourne.